


On the Eldritch Road

by peternurphy



Category: Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 16:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1695224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peternurphy/pseuds/peternurphy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Randolph Carter and Nyarlathotep completely fuck up and end up having to hitchhike from Seattle to Boston.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Eldritch Road

Randolph hadn’t wanted to do this alone. There had to be others still, others who he could talk with about his past experiences and dreams, but Miskatonic was completely detached from the research and studies it used to have. He had no friends - he’d lost all connections when he got his new body, and the people he’d met as Chandraputra were all dead. And now, it was 2014.

Randolph Carter was born in 1874.

His body wasn’t even his own anymore. Even if he bothered to look human, it was a completely different persona. Ey hadn’t been able to bear seeing old family or friends after his “disappearance”, and he’d moved across the country, to a city of rain and way more coffee than any human should drink. When he was young and a struggling writer he’d drank coffee. On his desk in Boston he always kept a little pot of it, and a bowl of sugar. After he’d gotten the new body, the first thing he’d done was make a mug of coffee for comfort. That was how he found out Zkauba was near deathly allergic to coffee.

The heavenly smells of the coffee shop next to Randolph’s apartment were what drove him to find a way to summon the one Outer God who’d ever bothered to even give him the time of day. Granted, the same Outer God had also tried to drive Randolph insane, and his moniker - the Crawling Chaos - didn’t exactly exude trustworthiness. This realization led to another nine or ten years of figuring out how to take every precaution and prevent Nyarlathotep from fucking him over. 

And after 17 years of living next to that tantalizing coffee shop, he’d finished every ritual, preparation, and spell, and bought a collection of shotguns. There was one ritual left - the ritual Randolph really didn’t want to do because it required summoning the most insufferable being he’d ever met. Part of him wanted to purposefully mess up the angles. Botch the sacrifice. Just not do the damn ritual in the first place, so he wouldn’t have to deal with Nyarlathotep.

Was it really worth it just for some answers? Randolph knew enough to get on and survive. Nobody was immortal, either - Zkauba had to shuffle off some time, and with Zkauba, Randolph would probably go. Of course, Randolph wasn’t suicidal - he rather enjoyed living. But being promoted to middle management after accidentally destroying the office with a ritual or summoning would get old eventually. And then he wouldn’t have to watch everyone die like always.

There was, of course, the matter of Yog-Sothoth. He wasn’t sure if his consciousness would stay with Yog-Sothoth. If it did, then that was a new experience - essentially, godhood. Real godhood. If it didn’t - so be it. he didn’t care too much either way.

And he ended up drawing every angle spot on, and making the cleanest cut on the sacrifice possible. The normal blue smoke started to fill the room. He couldn’t open a window because the lines for the circle went onto the walls and over the window, and that would mess up the ritual. And slowly, an area of the smoke started to grow more defined and opaque.  
“Fuck off,” Randolph murmured under his breath.

The smoke was definitely anthropomorphic now. What had been crawling up the window and curling into Randolph’s lungs was being pulled into the humanoid figure on the floor. Randolph could make out a face - great, he’d have to make eye contact with this fuckhead. 

“Gahhhhwhaddafackayadoin’?!”

Randolph had dropped his Boston accent since he’d moved to Seattle. Apparently, Nyarlathotep had gained one, even though he probably had never been to Boston in the first place. The accent was much more eldritch and strange than the shifting angles of the room and the carpet rapidly changing colors. “Shit on my dick.”

Nyarlathotep rolled over to face away from Randolph, and Randolph sat down approximately a foot from his back. He wondered if he should say something. The burst of vulgarity at the situation had made him a bit too apprehensive to say anything. He took the ceremonial dagger and poked the Outer God in the side with it. There was a short moan. Randolph then pulled on Nyarlathotep’s arm, in the hopes that he might get some actual reaction or acknowledgement.

Maybe it was 30 seconds before Randolph got a response, maybe it was two hours. Just the presence of a god and the side effects of the many rituals had the potential to fuck up how time flowed for a bit. Randolph would have estimated around 45 minutes.

“I can’t believe --”

Randolph hadn’t intended to raise an eyebrow at this, but he had. Nyarlathotep shut up and tightened his mouth. “You know, I thought all that Yog-Sothoth shit was nothing. What the fuck are you doing?”

“That’s what I wanted to know.”

Nyarlathotep pushed himself off the ground and crossed his arms. “If you were going to summon anyone to explain all this bullshit to you, why would you summon me? Yog-Sothoth would probably know more, I’ve been busy this whole time doing science in Russia, and Yog-Sothoth is less likely to kill you just for the hell of it. Like I’m going to, right now.”

Randolph rolled his eyes. With the years he’d spent collecting different sacrifices and books of impossible knowledge, he had no reason to fear Nyarlathotep’s threats. That didn’t keep him from tensing his muscles and balling one hand into a fist and wrapping the other around a canister of bear pepper spray. Nothing happened and he slowly relaxed, watching Nyarlathotep start laughing in a sore manner. “Carter, you piece of shit.”

He kept laughing. Randolph felt gratified by being called a piece of shit by a very powerful god, and decided to break the rest of the bad news. “You’re stuck in this avatar, and-”

“I kind of figured that out!”

The laughing stopped and Randolph caught a glimpse of a scowl as Nyarlathotep’s back turned to him and moved towards the kitchenette. “You’re also stuck within fifty feet of me, so you can’t just walk away, either.” But Nyarlathotep wasn’t leaving. Randolph craned his neck to see what he was doing in the kitchenette, and watched him rummage around for something in the drawers. Was he hungry?

He returned from the kitchenette without any food. Randolph felt confused, then Nyarlathotep pulled a vegetable knife from his sleeve and charged at him. Randolph felt scared. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pepper spray. The charge slowed down, at least, and Randolph moved out of the way. Nyarlathotep swung around, his eyes squeezed shut against the orange spray running down his face. He swung again, and Randolph brought his hand up to stop the knife. He realized it was stupid as the knife slid through the muscles of his thumb and jammed against the pepper spray. 

Randolph didn’t drop the canister until he started coughing himself. Through the tears he could see Nyarlathotep was still swinging the knife around, blindly, and he dropped to the floor, coughing into the mittens. He moved his legs around, hoping he’d trip Nyarlathotep somehow and get the knife.

Instead, there was a loud crash and swearing and Randolph’s cat yowling. He opened his eyes and tried to blink to get the capsaicin out. The knife had landed a few feet from his knee, point down in the carpeting. Randolph reached out and pulled it towards him, just in case - but Nyarlathotep seemed too preoccupied with choking. He’d knocked down a bookcase and was throwing books and other various knickknacks that had come with the apartment in Randolph’s vague direction. 

Then the onslaught stopped. Randolph took a deep breath. “How about we get some water, go outside, and just talk this out without hurting ourselves.”

There was a long groan in response. Randolph was anticipating a “Fuck you,” or some cryptic, pompous bullshit. Instead, there was nothing - just the sound of coughing, shuffling feet back towards the kitchenette, and running water. He pulled himself up off the floor and followed, to get his own water, then left the stinging air of the apartment. For some reason, the outside air led to another coughing fit. His guest chimed in with more hacking, and added to the cacophony of their complete incompetence. 

“I should tell-” Nyarlathotep broke off into coughing. “-you that, this kind of knowledge is exactly-” He vomited. “-what I’m meant to be keeping from humans. Besides, I-” There was more coughing. “I don’t know.”

Randolph was ready to punch him in the face, but he restrained himself - it wasn’t Nyarlathotep’s fault he’d wasted so much time for nothing. And, he’d just pepper sprayed him. That was satisfying enough. “Well, if you don’t know, then who the hell does?” Nyarlathotep shrugged.

“Great. Real helpful. Thanks.”

Whatever semblance of a conversation there was stopped and fell into coughing and sips of water. Finally, Nyarlathotep spoke. “Probably someone in the court knows. We can go through the Dreamlands and do the shit you did last time, and I’ll just interpret for you.”

“About the Dreamlands…”

“No way.”

“I mean, I’ve been trying, it was my first plan-”

“Is this really happening to me right now?”

“I also lost the key.”

Nyarlathotep looked like he was about to cry. “You lost the key. You lost the key which made all this happen in the first place. You just lost it.” Randolph could have sworn the Outer god was crying, but he didn’t want to say anything. Even so, he glanced over, and got a “pepper spray” in response. 

“I think it was stolen, if that makes you feel better.”

It clearly didn’t. “I’d undo the spells if I could.” It probably wasn’t the best time to bring that back up, but then, Randolph Carter had never tried to be tactful. “They’ll wear off eventually, though. The normal duration is only about six months. And you’re immortal, aren’t you? It can’t be that long, for you.”

He looked to the bench and realized Nyarlathotep wasn’t there anymore. However, there was a ball of dejection on the sidewalk. Randolph leaned off the bench and peered at him, then heard murmuring.

“What was that?”

Nyarlathotep pulled his head out and pushed his hair out from his face. “There’s a place in New England that could probably get us there. We could pack up whatever you have that would be needed to get it ready, then drive across the country because there’s no way it’ll get past airport security. Then, we ask whoever, and you get your old body back or die or whatever you wanna do. We can salvage this.”

It wasn’t a bad plan. It was one Randolph Carter had never considered, but had a high probability of working out. He’d be trapped in a car for several days with the Crawling Chaos, but he’d brought that part upon himself. He himself wasn’t actually able to drive, or in ownership of a car - but Nyarlathotep had to be able to take care of that. “You’ll be driving.”

“I don’t have a car. Fuck, this doesn’t mean that we’ll-”

“-be hitchhiking there.”

Nyarlathotep pressed his lips together and put his hand to his forehead. Then the hand slipped down to his chin and his lips formed a smile, and he looked back up to Randolph, who felt afraid. “What if we were to make a short detour, to make enough money to get a car that could get us to New England? It’d only be a day out of our way, and then we wouldn’t have to inflict ourselves on whoever had the misfortune of picking us up on the freeway.”

Whatever that meant, Randolph wasn’t entirely sure. Were they going to get jobs in another city? Prostitution? Randolph wasn’t attractive, and Nyarlathotep would probably end up murdering the client. There was Las Vegas, but that was luck-based and uncertain.

“You any good with probability and statistics, Randolph? What about card counting?”

And of course, it was their first destination.


End file.
